Sawt Falasteen - Stock markets shrug off Trump trade war fears but tech sags

Wall Street opened higher, with the Dow and S&P 500 edging up but the tech-heavy Nasdaq slipping.

"There hasn't been a full thrust of buying interest, though, as the recent price action has left participants feeling somewhat sheepish about buying into the weakness," said Briefing.com analyst Patrick O'Hare.

Europe's main indices were higher in afternoon trading, with defence and banking stocks faring particularly well.

A weak session across Asia followed softness in New York on Monday, with the S&P 500 falling below its 50-day moving average.

Markets were responding to an "unease over looming US tariff policies and their potential ripple effects on global growth and inflation," said Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

Trump said Monday that he planned to proceed with tariffs on Canada and Mexico once a 30-day suspension expires next week.

Levies were announced against the countries in January but had been delayed to allow for negotiations. Tariffs on Chinese goods went ahead without a grace period.

The announcement came after Trump signed a memo at the weekend calling for curbs on Chinese investments in industries including technology and critical infrastructure, healthcare and energy.

The developments fanned tensions between the world's top economic superpowers and added to concerns about the possibility of another debilitating trade war amid growing uncertainty about the global outlook.

Tariff fears have been mitigated somewhat by the view that Trump uses tariff threats as a negotiating tactic, but the tech sector has been a point of weakness.

China's DeepSeek unveiling a chatbot that upended the AI industry led traders to reassess their recent vast investments, and a trade war with China could disrupt their businesses.

The Magnificent Seven tech stocks, which include Google parent Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Nvidia, have fallen around 8.5 percent since peaking in early December.

Nvidia, whose results on Wednesday will be closely watched for its views on the outlook for AI chip sales in light of the Chinese startup's arrival, saw its stock fall though its 50-day moving average in trading on Monday.

Its shares fell another one percent as trading got underway in New York on Tuesday.

Bitcoin fell back below $90,000 for the first time in a little more than a month as the optimism over expected Trump deregulation for the crypto market ebbs away.

The sector has also been hit by the recent $1.5 billion hack of Dubai-based cryptocurrency exchange Bybit, representing the biggest crypto theft in history, as well as a memecoin scandal in Argentina.

In company news, shares in British consumer goods giant Unilever fell around 2.5 percent after chief executive Hein Schumacher stepped down after less than two years at the helm.

- Key figures around 1430 GMT -

New York - Dow: UP 0.4 percent at 43,647.31 points

New York - S&P 500: FLAT at 5,985.08

New York - Nasdaq Composite: DOWN 0.2 percent at 19,243.83

London - FTSE 100: UP 0.6 percent at 8,708.87

Paris - CAC 40: UP 0.1 at 8,102.61

Frankfurt - DAX: UP 0.4 percent at 22,524.11

Tokyo - Nikkei 225: DOWN 1.4 percent at 38,237.79 (close)

Hong Kong - Hang Seng Index: DOWN 1.3 percent at 23,034.02 (close)

Shanghai - Composite: DOWN 0.8 percent at 3,346.04 (close)

Euro/dollar: UP at $1.0503 from $1.0468 on Monday

Pound/dollar: UP at $1.2670 from $1.2623

Dollar/yen: DOWN at 149.34 from 149.76 yen

Euro/pound: DOWN at 82.89 pence from 82.91 pence

West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 0.6 percent at $70.30 per barrel

Brent North Sea Crude: DOWN 0.3 percent at $73.83 per barrel

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T.Khatib--SF-PST